Bids

The Western Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Lease Sale 233, which offered for bid 20.7 million acres offshore Texas, yielded fewer offers and lower total high bids than in the past, with 12 operators making 61 offers for 53 blocks that covered just more than 300,000 acres, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) officials said Wednesday.

Units of Kinder Morgan’s El Paso Pipeline Partners LP business said that during recent open seasons, plenty of customers stepped up for incremental long-term transportation capacity from the Marcellus Shale region to serve markets in Georgia, South Carolina and northern Florida.

Piedmont Natural Gas will be soliciting bids for asset management services and gas supply beginning Nov. 1 for its North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee operations. The Charlotte, NC-based utility has a total system throughput of more than 250 Bcf/year, with firm transportation contracts on multiple pipelines. Piedmont will be seeking asset management services, seasonal, and year-round supply for contract terms yet to be determined. To receive a copy of the request for proposals when posted, contact Keith Maust at (704) 731-4901, or Sarah Stabley at (704) 731-4907.

Plains All American Pipeline LP is constructing a 95-mile extension of its Oklahoma crude oil pipeline to service increasing production from the Granite Wash, Hogshooter and Cleveland Sands producing areas in western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle. The new Western Oklahoma pipeline will provide up to 75,000 b/d of takeaway capacity from Reydon, OK, in Roger Mills County to PAA’s Orion station in Major County, OK. At the Orion station, crude oil will flow on PAA’s existing pipeline system to the PAA terminal in Cushing, OK. The new Western Oklahoma pipeline is supported by long-term producer commitments and is expected to be in service by the end of the first quarter of 2014, the company said.

PAA Natural Gas Storage, parent of Pine Prairie Energy Center, on Monday said it successfully completed a nonbinding open season for bids on an aggregate of 12.5 Bcf of firm storage capacity with a starting date of April 1 during 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Mexico’s state-owned electric utility, Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE), is reportedly seeking bids from private companies to build about 1,460 miles of natural gas pipeline in the northern part of the country.

Cash market prices overall tumbled just above 8 cents Wednesday as traders noted a market lacking bids. An outage lifted Florida Gas Transmission into the plus column, but Gulf, West Coast, and Rockies points all slid close to a dime.

Charlotte, NC-based Piedmont Natural Gas is soliciting bids for asset management services and gas supply beginning Nov. 1 for its North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee operations. The utility has a total system throughput of more than 250 Bcf/year, with firm transportation contracts on Columbia Gas Transmission, Columbia Gulf Transmission, Dominion Transmission, East Tennessee Natural Gas Pipeline, Midwestern Gas Transmission, Texas Eastern Transmission, Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line. Piedmont said it is seeking asset management services, seasonal, and year-round supply for contract terms yet to be determined. To receive a copy of the request for proposals when posted, contact Keith Maust at (704) 731-4901 or Sarah Stabley at (704) 731-4907.

Wabash Gas Storage LLC said a recent open season garnered bids for more than three times the capacity of its 12-14 Bcf storage facility under development in eastern Illinois near Midwestern Gas Transmission Co. pipeline’s Paris compressor station (see Daily GPI, Nov. 16). Injection and withdrawal capacity of the facility is estimated at 200,000 MMBtu/d. Wabash also received expressions of interest in having the storage project interconnect with the Rockies Express and Panhandle Eastern pipeline systems.